Tag: nonfiction

A review of Red Hot Internet Publicity by Penny Sansevieri

When it comes to the virtual book tour, Red Hot Internet Publicity really shines. Sansevieri has been running virtual book tours for authors for a few years now, and although her services aren’t inexpensive (she’s got plenty of inside knowledge which makes the tours effective), this book is.

A review of Naples ‘44 by Norman Lewis

Lewis is a compassionate, clear-headed witness to heartrending tragedy, but there are many moments of irony and humour here as well. There is plenty of poverty, horror and suffering in these pages; yet there is resilience too. People survive.

A review of Shakespeare the Thinker by A.D. Nuttall

Nuttall uses wit and personal recollections to illuminate his text. The result is lively and relaxed although he makes no concessions to difficulties. His explanations are cogent and full. As a book by a writer worth reading for his own sake and as one of the dozen books that any reader of Shakespeare should have, this is not only an essential book, it is a delight.

A review of Virginia Woolf by Julia Briggs

This book dwells necessarily on the Bloomsbury group, a subject of so many books that saturation impairs the urgency of its interest, but she surmounts this as much as possible by an emphasis on Woolf. She has written a model of what good literary criticism should be. This is an excellent book to add to the collection of any reader who requires a useful and intriguing book on a fascinating but often elusive writer.

A review of The Paris Review Interviews, volume 1

Overall, Gourevitch’s hope that these interviews will stand “if not as definitive portraits of each artist, then as a significant contribution to such an ultimate portrait, with the added fascination that they are in large measure self-portraits” has been, on my reading, largely fulfilled.

A review of On Opera by Bernard Williams

This book will contribute something to your knowledge of opera but it will not be easy to read. The awkwardness of Williams’s English makes the book unpleasant. It baffles me that a man who obviously had such a love for music could have written so unmusically.

A review of The Early Works of Dr. Seuss Volume 1

At £14.99, this book is cheap at the price, and an excellent introduction to Geisel’s work. It is a commendable mix of the silly, the sinister and the political, drawn from a wide variety of sources across advertising, newspapers and magazines. The relatively low production values, however, will mean that it will have limited appeal to the very people most likely to buy it or be given it: comic collectors.